


The Prophet of Fire and the Ice Angel

by gypsyweaver



Series: A Tale of Crowns and Coins [3]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Ineffable Bureaucracy (Good Omens), Multi, Nonbinary Beelzebub (Good Omens), Smut, They/Them Pronouns for Beelzebub (Good Omens), Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-04
Updated: 2020-04-04
Packaged: 2021-03-01 04:27:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,102
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23479198
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gypsyweaver/pseuds/gypsyweaver
Summary: After being pegged into the sand by his demon, Gabriel can't shake the idea that something is very wrong...
Relationships: Beelzebub/Gabriel (Good Omens), Beelzebub/Sandalphon (Good Omens), Sandalphon (Good Omens)/Original Character(s)
Series: A Tale of Crowns and Coins [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1684990
Comments: 4
Kudos: 37





	The Prophet of Fire and the Ice Angel

**Author's Note:**

  * For [irishamrock](https://archiveofourown.org/users/irishamrock/gifts).



> CW: SEVERE MISGENDERING, Sandalphon, referenced rape, "corrective" rape, rape as a tool

A small and nameless island, Pacific Ocean. Night.

* * *

There was a bit of a chill as the sickle moon smiled down on them. He wondered if Beelzebub was comfortable, but didn’t want to disturb them to ask. They seemed to be asleep, curled up beside him, their head on his chest.

The two of them had laid out a massive beach blanket, held down at the corners with heavy stones. They’d stayed there, with a bucket of ice and booze and a basket of food. It had been a lovely picnic, and then they dispensed of clothing and every other barrier between them.

He loved the way they felt inside him. He loved pleasing them. The way that the tenderness (that they always began with) evaporated under the urgency of their need. How their passion rose up and how hard they rode him. He loved the way that they pushed in so deep when the climax seized them. And the careful, gentle way that they withdrew, leaving him leaking back and front.

After several rounds, the demon exhausted and spent, had laid him down. They kissed him and whispered their affections. Then, they curled up right where they still were, and slept. Gabriel had dozed a bit. Sleeping was not a habit he had acquired. Even when completely exhausted, he could not stay away from consciousness for long. So he was awake now, watching the moon.

He couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong.

Gabriel ran a hand over their back. Their skin felt cool, and he could feel the ridge of their spine. No matter how much they ate, his Prince stayed so small. The only weight that they could carry was a soft belly. The rest of them was rail thin, waif-like. He could enclose the whole of one of their feet in his hand. He was fairly certain that he could hold both of their wrists in one hand with room to spare.

He stroked their back again, and this time, they opened their eyes. They smiled.

“I didn’t mean to wake you,” he said.

“Mm,” they replied. They leaned up and laid a kiss on his lips. “I am awake, though.”

Gabriel reached for them, found them and began to touch. To tease.

“Oh...that’s good. More.”

He rolled them over, and they laughed. Now, he was kissing them, his hand still on them, still pleasing them.

This was their third time together. Their first being a marathon in an empty apartment in Venice. Killing time waiting for Pestilence to arrive, drinking very good wine and kissing between sips. When they’d run out of wine and places to kiss, Beelzebub had pulled him out of his clothes. The Prince made Gabriel an Effort, and blessed him there with their mouth and hands. They’d slicked their fingers and slid them deep inside. Many times, they brought him to the precipice, but never let him slip over it. No, not until they were inside him, moving, causing him to cry out. He’d come violently, that first time, clutching at the thick carpet at his back. They spent hours at it, both of them trying to get closer to each other than skin would allow.

The second time just happened a few hours ago on the black-sand beach, beneath the shelter of his clouds, heartbeats away from the pounding surf. The motion of the water sounded like the race of his own pulse as he knelt obediently. As they kissed his back, parted him, and slipped inside.

Now, he very much wanted to return that pleasure to them. He traced a path with lips, teeth, and tongue. From their mouth to their chin, down their jawline, to their neck. Here, he lingered. Their skin tasted a bit sweeter in the curve of the neck to the shoulders. Then he was nipping their collarbones, and down to their breasts. He was gentle, reverent, drawing a nipple in his mouth, enjoying the velvety texture of the skin surrounding.

They gasped, and now they were bucking into his hand, and he was pulling away from them. He denied them.

“I want to try something new,” he said.

“You want to fuck me.”

There was dismay in their voice, and Gabriel couldn’t pretend that it didn’t hurt him. They had been shy about that, about changing places, and he didn’t think it had anything to do with the difference in their sizes.

They were a healer. They could accommodate him. Gabriel thought that the Prince was afraid to relinquish control. Afraid to trust that he would care for them.

“Well, yeah, I do,” he said. “It feels good. I want to make you feel good.”

They were breathing hard, trying to decide. He returned his hand to them, kept stroking.

“No,” they said. Their hand laid over his. “Use your mouth. Get me...get me ready.”

He raised himself up on one elbow and looked down on Beelzebub. Their eyes were wide and blue. Something bad was there. They weren’t afraid of HIM, but they were definitely afraid. Someone had hurt them. Someone in Hell?

He kissed them, like the first kiss that made a crappy American diner into a holy place. A slow melding of lips and tongues. His hand on the back of their neck, angling them up to give him more access. His other hand still stroking them.

They fairly purred into his mouth.

“I don’t want it if you don’t,” he said.

“I do...but...”

“Someone hurt you.”

“I can’t say it.”

“You can tell me anything, Beez.”

“No. Literally, I cannot.”

Gabriel blinked. “Why not?”

“I swore an oath...”

“Can you write it?”

“No.”

“Draw it?”

“No.”

“Can you let me guess?”

“You can guess all you want. I can’t tell you if you’re right or wrong.” Beelzebub sighed heavily. They pushed Gabriel back and sat up. Slowly, they tucked their feet beneath them. Their shoulders curled forward and they looked so small in the weak light of the moon. “I swore an oath. I cannot say. I can’t write it, draw it, indicate an answer to any queries, nor use charades or interpretive dance. Nor would I want to, even if I could...”

“You wouldn’t want to?” Gabriel echoed.

“It’s not you...I don’t like reliving it.”

A chill rode the night air, stronger now. They shivered with it. Gabriel crawled to them, gathered them into his arms. They allowed him to do it, sank into him. Centuries of pain weighed them down. Beelzebub sank into him.

Their skin was so cold, and their eyelids drooped.

Gabriel clung to them, stroking their back with his fingers. “I’m going to figure it out, eventually,” he said, softly. Stubbornly. “You know I will.”

“Angel...”

“And when I do, I’ll--“

“Stop.”

“No, never.”

“G-G-Gabriel...” they said, with a hard shiver. Their breath steamed as they spoke. It was cold now, so cold. “Angel, where are your clouds?”

And Gabriel knew what was wrong. What was missing. What had been eating at him since he opened his eyes. The clouds. They must have dissipated while he slept.

The earth shuddered as a weight landed, not far from them. A tall, delicate form rose from the sand. She spread her wings, the feathers as sharp as ice shards. The moonlight glinted on her white-blonde curls, and her glacial eyes gleamed low. She drew a longsword from the sheath at her hip.

The wind kicked up, cold cutting through Gabriel like steel. It whipped the angel’s hair and robes around her.

“N-N-Nuriel,” Beelzebub chattered. “Ch-charmed.”

“Always a pleasure, demon,” said the whip-thin angel, her own breath steaming in the air. “Sleepy yet? What is it the humans say? Ready for the sandman?”

“Oh. Him.” They sounded bored. “Where is he?”

Strong hands grabbed Gabriel, wrenching him away from Beelzebub. The demon screamed as Gabriel’s face was shoved into the woolly blanket. A sandaled foot held him fast.

Beelzebub cried out for him, but they sounded very far away.

“Give me a reason, poppet,” a voice above him rumbled.

He could feel Beelzebub’s fear, a thick and metallic wave. They whimpered, “Please...no...d-d-don’t hurt him.”

“If you behave yourself, he’ll be fine,” said the voice, which Gabriel felt certain that he should remember. “If you do not, I’ll discorporate him and he’ll go back to Heaven. I daresay you’ll never see him again, poppet. My brother won’t be generous with the recorporations.”

Sandalphon. Not as he had been for the last few centuries, but as he truly was. The tallest of the angels, and specially blessed by God herself. Strong. Powerful.

Gabriel’s arms were yanked behind him and something cold and unforgiving circled his wrists. The sandal left the back of his head, and he was yanked to his knees. He could see Nuriel standing with a longsword pointed at his Prince.

This close to Sandalphon, Nuriel’s chill could not reach him. It was like standing near an open hearth. Heat blazed from him.

Beelzebub was still nude, but he saw that they’d drawn in their Efforts, and their nipples as well. They looked like a Russian ball-joint doll. He’d seen those at a market near Christmastime in Moscow. Strange, otherworldly things made to look like fairies and elves in a glittering shop window. They’d stopped there, looking at the displays. Eating gingerbread from a paper sack, just enjoying each other’s company and the joy of the people in the markets. He was learning the modern, alternate lyrics to a bunch of old carols from Beelzebub. (Batman had been a prominent figure, for some reason.)

That’s what his Prince looked like now--a terrified, yet furious, Russian ball-joint doll.

An unyielding circle of metal slipped around his neck, and cinched tight on his skin. He recognized it as a restraining collar. He felt himself lose touch with his miracles. He was helpless.

Sandalphon stood beside him, hand clamped on his shoulder.

“Never thought you’d fancy HIM, poppet,” he said, squeezing Gabriel tightly enough to break bones if he had been mortal. “He’s not a very worldly sort. I’d have expected you to go for the Serpent of Eden before this wretch.”

“You n-n-never bothered to g-g-get to know me much,” Beelzebub returned. “And you, N-N-Nuriel. The only c-c-cunt in Heaven NEARLY as c-c-cold as mine. T-tell me, d-d-does Sandalphon c-c-call out my name, when he’s with you?”

Nuriel’s face twisted in the moonlight, and she laid the point of her blade just beneath the Prince’s collarbone. She drove in, just enough to make them bleed. Black blood streaked, like tears, down Beelzebub’s nippleless breast.

“You shut up,” Nuriel snapped. “He’s going to kill you this time.”

“I’m sure that’s what he s-s-said.” Beelzebub paused as a terrible shiver wracked them. “B-b-but he was at his b-brother’s elb-bow when they d-d-drew up the new contracts. He CAN’T kill me...b-b-but I saw when I signed those contracts that there were no clauses against imp-p-prisonment.”

“It was him?” Gabriel asked. “He’s the one who hurt you?”

“I c-can’t say.”

“No, she can’t,” Sandalphon said. “Come on, poppet. Make yourself beautiful for me. You know what I like. Unless you want me to strip the sodium out of his veins.”

“I c-c-can’t. As you well know. It’s t-t-too c-c-cold...”

“Nuriel, let her.”

Nuriel stepped away, but did not drop her blade.

Beelzebub closed their eyes, and turned their face away. He watched as their breasts swelled, and their nipples returned. A thin liquid began to leak from them, mixing with the black blood. (He wanted them...lactating?) The Effort that they made was a vulva, pink lips shyly peeping out from under the thick black curls that bloomed there. Their hair grew out--a shadow darker than the night, a swoop of ink just brushing their waist.

“You’re sick,” Gabriel said, finally daring to look Sandalphon in the face.

“If I am, it’s their fault. They tempt me...and it’s best that I slake my needs on a creature such as this.” Sandalphon shrugged. “You do the same, so you’re in no place to judge. Though I’d say that of the two of us, your lusts are the more...deviant.”

“I’m not like you. I don’t have to...force them.”

“Her,” he corrected. “And she’s tempted you more than she ever did me. Seems she’d got you mistaking her for something higher than the filth she is. She ought to be grateful for whatever use we can get out of her.”

Sandalphon looked more like he did in his human days. Untamed tangles of hair, huge beard, watery blue eyes under shrubby brown eyebrows. The glazed, pop-eyed, prophet-from-the-desert stare.

His insanity brimmed just beneath.

This was the Archangel that had rained fire down on Sodom and Gomorrah. This was the Archangel that wore manflesh and destroyed Ekron in flames...

Beelzebub would never have left their people to suffer a drought. The realization was like a slap in the face.

“How long...?” Gabriel asked, weakly.

He meant to ask how long Sandalphon had kept them in Ekron, forcing himself on Beelzebub. Hurting them.

“Oh, I think that depends on her,” said Sandalphon, misinterpreting the question. “Eventually, she’ll do something dreadful and I won’t be able to control myself,” he explained. “I’ll discorporate her, and she’ll hide from me in Hell for some time. But, she has a weakness for the humans. And with Pestilence riding again, she’ll return. Then, I can hunt her down again.”

“That is d-d-dreadfully inadvisable,” Beelzebub replied, evenly. “My p-p-people will come looking for me. Don’t think I did-d-d not leave clues.”

“You swore an oath,” Sandalphon said, releasing Gabriel and stepping over to the Prince. “You swore--“

“I know what I swore,” Beelzebub said, evenly. The chatter was gone with Sandalphon’s warmth. With his proximity. “I swore to never name you, your deeds, nor your brother who protected you. But I swore no oath to protect Nuriel. If I go missing, there are mechanisms in play to put THAT name in every demonic ear.”

They smiled, just on half of their face. A wicked, triumphant smirk. And Nuriel, for her part, looked terrified.

Sandalphon backhanded them to the ground. Their name ripped itself from Gabriel’s throat, as he strained against the shackles. As he pitched forward, sprawling on the blanket on the beach.

Helpless. He was utterly helpless.

“Nuriel!” Sandalphon roared. “Chill her.”

Nuriel obeyed.

The air got very cold. His Prince drew themself up on their knees. Their skin was deathly pale in the moonlight. He was killing them.

Maybe that was their goal?

They held their fist up to Nuriel and Sandalphon. A sparkle of silver shined at the top of their fist. They ran their thumb over it.

“What’s she doing?” Nuriel asked.

“The cold. It makes it hard for her to think,” Sandalphon replied. His voice was gentler. The voice of a man with candy and a panel van. “What are you doing, poppet?”

“A t-t-trick. Watch me.”

He’d seen Aziraphale do this particular trick before. Well, he’d seen him attempt it. In the end, the coin had fallen and rolled into a sewer grate, leaving Aziraphale one pound sterling poorer. But Beelzebub was surer, sliding the coin over their first knuckle, catching it, and sliding it over the next one.

Pestilence’s coin. Gabriel had asked about it, eons ago, when they were eating under the shelter of his clouds and watching the waves roll over the black sand.

“We’ve known each other a long time,” Beelzebub had replied, with a shrug. “I suppose it’s an inside joke, a warning, and a reminder.”

“All three?” Gabriel said, as they turned it over in their palm. Heads. Tails. Heads. Tails. Flashing silver under the cloud-scattered light.

“As an inside joke, it lacks humor. As a warning, it lacks teeth.” The demon paused, and sighed. The coin was heads-up, a simple rendition of Pestilence’s profile smiled benignly at the gap between their middle and pointer finger. Between Jupiter and Saturn. Between authority and identity.

“And as a reminder?”

“It’s a memento mori...that I can die. That he can kill me.”

“Is he after you?”

“No more than he’s after any other organism. I rode after him for ages, sometimes side-by-side. Feeding my flies on the leavings. They’re cleaners, Gabriel,” they explained. “My flies return the dead to the soil. They clean the land and water of the decay that Pestilence leaves. They keep the sickness constrained to one area.” They smiled a grim little grin. “He hates that.”

“So he gives you...coins?”

“To close my eyes if his germs manage to take me out,” they said. “I have quite a collection.”

“Boatman’s coins,” Gabriel said. “Bit of a pagan tradition, isn’t it?”

“I was venerated as a pagan god,” Beelzebub said, with a laugh. “And how many of those beautiful Roman statues did you inspire, _nu_?”

He’d laughed and they’d laughed. Without thinking, he kissed them. Their breath was still sweet with wine and grilled fruit. Had that been just a few hours ago?

And now, here they were. Him in chains. Them, naked and kneeling, brain nearly frozen, sliding Pestilence’s coin across one knuckle, and then another, all the way down their hand and then back up. Over the thumb, and they looked up, a sweet smile on their lips.

“Oh, that’s very nice, poppet. A very cute trick.”

Nuriel made a noncommittal sound. She was obviously less impressed.

“I haven’t finished yet-t-t,” Beelzebub said. “Heads or t-t-tails, m-my m-m-master?”

Sandalphon smiled at being called master. “Heads,” he said, his tone as radiant as a false dawn.

Beelzebub flipped the coin up, higher than Gabriel had thought that they would, and both angels watched it spin in the frigid air.

Silver flash, silver flash, and then...

And then, red?

The coin dissolved. Beelzebub pointed at Nuriel, and a red splat hit her across the face. She wiped her hand across it and stared.

“Is this blood?”

Nuriel was distracted, and the air across the beach warmed. Beelzebub threw the second coin in Sandalphon’s face. It landed with a splat.

Sandalphon roared at them and swung out, but the Prince (no longer freezing) dissolved into a swarm of insects.

“Nuriel!” he cried. “She’s getting away!”

But Nuriel had fallen to the sand. Her eyelids fluttered and her breath rattled in her chest.

The swarm descended around Gabriel, and he felt the blanket and beach fade beneath him. Beelzebub left in a puff of smoke, taking Gabriel and leaving the shackles and collar in a heap on the beach blanket.

**Author's Note:**

> Why do people always mess with the healers? *sigh*
> 
> Old Apocrypha and Talmusic lore says that Sandalphon is an alchemist, so yeah. Stripping sodium out of Gabriel's veins is a Thing He Could Do. Hyponatrium is a painful way to go.
> 
> Sorry I'm late with this one. (I meant to put out a part a day. Five parts total, plus an epilogue, maybe?) 
> 
> I got to go to emergency dentistry yesterday, and found out that these random fevers and hacking cough are not Covid-19, but an abscessed tooth that gave me a sinus infection. So, yeah, a fecking horse dose of antibiotics later--I'm here.
> 
> Comments and kudos make me smile! Concrit welcome!


End file.
